Seven years have passed since world war III, and only now dare you leave your shelter in order to investigate what has become of the surface world. You drive out in your specially-equipped vehicle, the Last V8, only to discover that the outside world is more hostile than you would have expected. Your task is now (as commended by a digitised voice at the beginning of each level) simply to get back to the base in as short time as possible.

The Last V8 is an over-head driving game where you must drive through narrow roads without crashing into anything, and with a strict deadline for your arrival at the base. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that you have only a narrow stripe of screen space to see where you're driving; two thirds of the screen is dedicated to instruments (speed readout, radiation level and mission objectives). The steering method is not the usual Sprint one; instead you simply pull the joystick in whichever direction you want to go, pulling it in the opposite direction in case you need to decelerate.